- Numbers' final release of an at times deliciously divisive 2014 was one of its best, and one that most fans of the label should be able to agree on. Unspecified Enemies are Louis Digital and CiM, and this dense, urgent four-track EP is the follow-up to Multi Ordinal Tracking Unit, which originally came out in 1999 on their own Counterattack label before being re-released by Numbers in 2012. If anything, the four tracks here are even more rough and ready, and they surge with the same blistering intensity.
"Ms.45" and "Chip Mode*" were taken from the Counterattack Live cassette that was sent to Martin McKay of the Glasgow record store Rubadub in 1999. Both are punchy, cacophonous attention-grabbers, with the former's bounding drums looming large over an almost happy hardcore-ish vocal squeak. "Chip Mode" features full-blooded screams as emergency-service tones and chaotic drums scatter in the background. "Liquid Floor" might just be the pick of the EP. It eventually turns its brittle flurry of thwacking drums and guttural vocal loops into a humming bliss-out with the addition of vast pads that tower over the other ingredients without consuming them. "Lifestyles Of The MiniDisc Era"—a comparatively abstract squelch of arrhythmic percussive uppercuts and simmering keys—rounds out a riotous and essential release.
TracklistA1 Ms 45
A2 Chip Mode
B1 Liquid Floor
B2 Lifestyles Of The MiniDisc Era